After having slept fitfully and longer than the last days, we head down to our hotel’s breakfast room since today we’re only covering 200km to get to our family meeting in southern Styria and have some time to spare. A very nice choice of food is to be expected with the type of hotel we’ve chosen – however, the coffee machine was one of the automatic and horrible kind – just have a look at the user interface! Our day starts cold, humid and very gray … and with a full battery – always a nice feeling to know […]
TDST2017 – Day4: Ljubljana <3
An early start yet again. Today, instead of a clear and blue sky, we’re greeted by heavy humidity and 30m visibility. Packing our TWIKE, we shiver with 9°C and the fog getting everything humid within minutes. Thankfully, the drive to the ferry is only 5 minutes – this doesn’t change the fact that we get to the pier 2 minutes too late and have to wait for 45 minutes until the next departure. No problem, since there is a bar just 10m away…serving my favourite poison plus some jam filled croissants – yum! Our being the last not […]
TDST2017 – Day3: Venice, here we come!
We get up early, have a quick coffee as a starter for the day and get into the TWIKE. Our goal for today is to get to Venice as quickly as possible in order to have as much time left over as possible to explore the city together. Since there is a direct Autostrada from Milan to Venice and my friends in Brescia assured me that the road surface was good, I decided to give this option a try: We join the Autostrada with just a few cars – we expected more for 7am – and easily take part […]
TDST2017 – Day2: Drive-free day in Brescia
Our first drive-free day on our second yearly TWIKE-adventure. We open the window of our room to be greeted not only by a very typical Mediterranean view, but also by a brilliant day awaiting us. Since last time I was in Brescia, I didn’t get to see to much of the city – this time I’m trying to catch up a little 🙂 First, we head out to have a look at Brescia’s marble quarries – source of a very nice marble variant called Botticino. Many older buildings in Brescia are built from this stone. Looking down from the hills […]
TDST2017 – Day1: A beautiful drive to Brescia
As always, the last few days before a trip are a whirl of preparations, getting everything done and looking forward to the drive. Weather is forecast to be perfect – my daughter and myself are very much looking forward to our trip together. Saturday morning, it’s still dark outside when we get up and start packing our TWIKE. I’ve changed the charge model to maximum capacity trip-mode (as coined by Tesla-speak) and TW560 spent the night slowly charging to 100%/17.7kWh capacity, which we will be needing today. With 10 years experience and efficiency, we load all our stuff into the […]
TDST2017: Less than a week!
All systems go. New GPS tracking & mapping solution activated and ready TWIKE fully serviced Chocolate buying date set Friends phoned and confirmed Hotel in Venice booked Train back to Switzerland booked Made space on phone’s SD card Tested TW_560’s Twitter feed We’re ready and looking forward to our trip. Due to unforseen complications, I had to cut my trip short by one day and thus will not be able to drive all the way back home in my TWIKE but will take the train from Villach to Feldkirch and drive from there to my office directly and start working […]
Repairs: After 234’000km, a few things needed attention – Part 4
TW560’s marathon problem fixing session finally over, Andi could get back to checking the rest of the chassis and changing the tyres. Smiling even after a full days’ worth of work on my TWIKE. I usually get about 7000-8000km out of a set of tyres. If I would change them when they are technically illegal in Switzerland it would be less than 5000km! Overall, I really like driving my TWIKE with slicks as they offer a lot of grip in dry conditions and are super-fun when roads are wet… As a hyper-miler, every option of reducing drag, […]
Repairs: After 234’000km, a few things needed attention – Part 3
Fixing a broken/disintegrated clamp Whilst searching for the source of an annoying squeak, Andi, however, found a much more serious problem: A clamp holding the chassis and frame together hat all but disintegrated! This might come from the fact that from time to time I’m driving my TWIKE slightly outside of its design envelope… For example here in Poland for hours on end.. And here in India… Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem that doesn’t take long to implement and will definitely last for a long time. A second clamp goes around the previous one and […]
Repairs: After 234’000km, a few things needed attention – Part 2
Fixing an annoying squeak TWIKE pilots always have a keen ear with regards to any new sound their TWIKE makes. Taking care of any problem as soon as possible not only saves money but can help preserve parts that might prove very hard to source if left to break/wear down. Following problem crept up just a week ago… A loud squeaking sound from somewhere around the right hand tyre/axle. Asking the usual suspects yielded answers from ‘No problem, might just be a piece of metal scraping somewhere’ to ‘gears scraping due to worn-down ball-bearings … this will be expensive!’ […]
Repairs: After 234’000km, a few things needed attention – Part 1
Prior to any TWIKE adventure, I usually take my TWIKE to an official TWIKE service centre to have a general check-up. This ensures that the chance of being left stranded somewhere far away is low. After discovering a slight problem with my steering swing assembly, I had an urgent reason to go to Andi from Ksenotek and have the assembly replaced besides my usual check-up and getting some new tyres. Furthermore, TW560 had started to develop a very annoying squeak when recuperating – not breaking – leading me to suspect some damage to the gear drive assembly. And, as always, […]